To the west, the sun was plunging below the horizon. They arrived over Kolwezi in a cloudless sky on a night of full moon. The red light on, the paras heaved a sigh of relief. This was what they had come for. Night drops were a part of their training.
‘On your feet! Hook on!’
The dispatchers were aware the planes were still far too high. The leading men of the first sticks looked out into the gloom, and saw the reason why the pilots had no intention of reducing altitude. Lines of tracer curved lazily up towards them. Other bursts of tracer outlined continuing combats on the ground. Then the red light went out and the dispatchers pushed the first men back from the doors. Col Erulin, 400 metres below them, had decided not to risk a night drop. Confident that the main Katangan force was far away, and more than satisfied with the progress made by the first wave, he had cancelled the drop to save unnecessary casualties, despite knowing how frustrated the men above him would feel.
It being impossible for them to land at Kamina in darkness, the C 130s now set course for Lumumbashi with the legionnaires aboard condemned to endure one more agony. Jammed in as they were, it was impossible to get the seats down again. Legs bent, heads twisted beneath the ceiling, they clung to each other and anything else within reach, some suffering agonies of cramp for the rest of the flight to Lumumbashi. Landing at 1930hrs, they staggered to the ground, unharnessed themselves and spent the night huddled together for warmth, lying on the concrete beneath the wings of the drop planes.
The Katangans’ dislike of fighting after darkness if they could avoid it enabled Bourgain and his men to escort the hostages liberated at the prison to the technical school, where they would be easier to protect. At 2030hrs Erulin moved his HQ into the John XXIII secondary school through a crowd of civilians defying the Legion’s curfew – imposed in their own interest – who had come to thank Erulin, his officers and men and President Giscard, for saving them.
Lt Col Bénézit was given the job of listening to them, calming them and trying to get them back into safety while Erulin was drawing up a balance sheet for the day’s operation with Coevoet and Capt Thomas, the Intelligence officer. It was extraordinary: 2 REP had one man dead, three or four wounded and most of the anti-tank section still missing, but not yet considered MIA. Examining the captured documents revealed that the Katangan/Angolan force had consisted of eleven battalions of 300 men, with six further battalions securing the axis of the advance. Weaponry had included Chinese 82mm mortars, 81mm French mortars and 60mm mortars.
In human terms, however, alarming reports were still coming in. Nearing the slaughterhouse scene in the offices of the Baron-Levèque Company, Capt Gausserès found the stench of corpses growing even stronger than elsewhere. He and his men were picking their way across ground literally carpeted with bodies. So advanced was the putrefaction that Gausserès estimated the killings to date from Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. In the moonlight, here was a man’s leg gnawed to the white bone by the scavenging dogs, there a woman with her abdomen torn open by them. And there, a little girl whose leg had been torn off by them. It was the children’s bodies that most upset the legionnaires, torn between impulses to vomit or to weep.
Firing continued sporadically throughout the night. Shortly before the second wave was due at 0500hrs on the Saturday morning, Erulin was handing out fresh tasks to the companies already on the ground. The second wave landed without incident, watched by hundreds of Europeans enjoying the pleasure of being able to walk out into their gardens for the first time in a week.
While 3rd Company was warily entering the native town, where the militia had gone to ground and could well still be killing hostages, they received a warning that several aircraft carrying Belgian troops would shortly be landing at the normal airport, 5km outside town. As always when ‘friendlies’ are coming from another direction with no common radio frequencies, Erulin’s concern was to avoid any confrontation between them and 3rd Company.
Despite the nights without sleep and all the unfortunate delays, the legionnaires were beginning to relax. Some joker suggested that the sun was in the wrong place here, south of the Equator. It was Gausserès’ company that ran into the Belgians while taking the Protestant church in Manika. An exchange of fire was narrowly avoided, and Gausserès found himself embracing an old buddy. Belgian Capt De Wulf had been on an airborne course with him less than twelve months before. The differences of their governments forgotten, the two captains swapped details of their missions.
To Gausserès surprise – and Erulin’s dismay – the Belgians had not come to support the Legion, but simply to evacuate all European civilians. Despite the first contact passing off without casualties, it was not long before sustained fire was incoming – from Belgians who continued firing when Gausserès leaped up and banged on his steel helmet, yelling none too politely that the rebels did not wear helmets. What a day, he thought, caught between the FNLC stay-behinds in Manika and King Baudouin’s men, fresh from Brussels!
Compared with the Legion, the Belgians had arrived in style aboard American C-130s. Also on the ground at last was Col Gras’ Buffalo. He was the first to learn that the Belgians had orders to evacuate the hostages and themselves within seventy-two hours. Gras was furious at the idea of leaving Kolwezi a ghost town, open to pillage and plunder of what was not already pillaged and plundered. But the Belgians would not listen. They had their orders, as he had his.
The Legion’s liberation of Kolwezi continued. The shops of Avenue Burga, guarded against looters when Marc Fauroux had been dragged along to what had so nearly been his execution, were now hollow shells, in which everything had been smashed, all the fittings wrenched out and ground to dust in the street. The worst for the legionnaires and the people they had liberated was the stench and the blood. Hungry, thirsty and sleep-deprived, they trod with every step in the lifeblood of murdered people as they continued with the task assigned them: to make Kolwezi safe for normal life to resume.
The Katangans had killed indiscriminately. Disconcertingly in the nightmare scene, the bloated European corpses, with eyes pecked out by birds and limbs half-eaten by the dogs, had turned black, while the African bodies had paled in the sunlight to a chalky grey colour.
For the wounded survivors, help was on the way. Capt Ferret found the hospital still unusable, but in the neighbouring clinic ten European doctors were doing their best to re-stock medical supplies. Their lives had been spared because they had operated on wounded Tigers until the retreat began. Then the rebel commanders had ordered their men to march back into Angola. Those unable to walk had been shot by their comrades, rather than be left and forced to talk.
Ferret left them to their good work and returned to the bar of the Impala Hotel, where he had improvised a sick bay. Cpl Jean Prudence, shot in the chest and a kidney, was operated on that afternoon by an Indian surgeon, assisted by a black surgeon and a French anaesthetist. That afternoon, begging medical supplies from the Belgians at the airport, Ferret was surprised to see the Belgian doctors from the clinic boarding evacuation planes. They had been ordered to leave. Their European patients were going with them, but there was ‘no space for blacks’ aboard the evacuation aircraft – not even for the wife and children of engineer Henri Jagodinski. The Legion found them seats on another plane. By Monday, Ferret and two Zairian general practitioners were the only doctors left in Kolwezi until Ferret’s No 2, Capt Morcillo, was flown in from Corsica to help out.
Combats in the neighbouring townships of Metal-Shaba, Luilu and Kapata continued for several days. On Sunday 21 May Ambassador Ross flew in to tour Kolwezi with Col Gras and make notes for a dispassionate account of events sent to Paris. That evening President Mobutu flew in to personally thank the Legion for an impeccably executed operation.
But the Legion had not finished spilling its blood. Pulled back to Lumumbashi after handing over Kolwezi to the FAZ, Morcillo learned from civilian colleagues that people were dying in the hospital for want of blood supplies. The Zairian soldie
rs refused to give any in the belief that it would shorten their lives, so 2 REP volunteered – every officer, NCO and legionnaire.
Before leaving Zaire, on 6 June – the thirty-fourth anniversary of D Day – the regiment spent as much energy polishing equipment and cleaning uniforms as it had in fighting the Katangans. The purpose was a victory parade through the streets of Lumumbashi to the delight of the inhabitants, mostly black with a scattering of Europeans. Erulin marched at the head of his men. The regimental song they sang in unison as they marched does not bear translation. The words are pretty awful, even in French. But the sense is fine, and the last lines are always clear: Nous sommes fiers d’appartenir au 2e REP.
We are proud to belong to 2 REP, they sang – and they had every right to be. To borrow a phrase from that sometime soldier Winston Churchill, this was their finest hour. The price that had been paid amounted to five men dead and twenty men wounded.[399] The casualties’ names give some idea of their origins before the Legion became their country: Allioui, Arnold, Becker, Clément, Harte, Jakovic, Marco, Muñoz, Raymond, Seeger, Svoboda …
The above is no more than a sample of what Col Erulin’s legionnaires achieved in an ultimate test of the training that bonded officers and men from so many different countries into one superbly trained fighting machine. An entire book could be written about the suffering of the hostages of Kolwezi and the heroism of the legionnaires who risked their lives to liberate the survivors, keeping a sense of humour and discipline despite all the unnecessary obstacles placed in their way by ignorance and incompetence in two European capitals.
No army in the world has ever done better, or more, in such trying circumstances. If the continued existence of the Legion needed a justification, Kolwezi was it.
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Acknowledgements
Every historian of the French Foreign Legion owes an enormous debt to the knowledgeable and helpful staff of Les Archives de la Légion Etrangère in Aubagne. I take great pleasure in thanking the Commanding General of the Foreign Legion for the privilege of using the excellent research facilities at Aubagne and especially for his kind permission to photograph objects in the Legion’s fascinating museum there, which is open to the public. The President of Les Amis du Musée de la Légion Etrangère, Gen Bruno Le Flem, gave me a warm welcome and valuable insights. Commandant Guyot of 1 RE displayed an encyclopaedic knowledge of Legion archives and Major Michon at the Centre de Documentation was unfailingly patient and helpful.
I also owe a great deal to ex-legionnaires and former Legion officers who generously recounted their personal experiences, to give readers the feeling of what it was like, serving in the Legion. Respecting the tradition of anonymity, I have named few of them. Ni vu, ni connu – as they say. Two whom I can thank by name are: Brig Anthony Hunter-Choat, formerly Sergent Choat of 1 REP, for his generosity in writing the Foreword and making numerous constructive comments on the final draft; and Col Philippe Dufour, President of the Association des Anciens de la Légion Etrangère de Bordeaux, who made me an honorary ex-legionnaire on the strength of this book – an honour of which I am proud.
Douglas Boyd
Appendix A: Images of the Legion
Appendix B: Equivalent ranks
French
British
United States
engagé volontaire
recruit
recruit
légionnaire 2ème classe
private
private
légionnaire 1ère classe
lance-corporal
private first class
caporal
corporal
corporal
caporal-chef
-
-
sergent
sergeant
sergeant
maréchal des logis (cavalry)
sergeant
sergeant
sergent-chef
staff sergeant
master sergeant
adjutant
warrant officer (2)
warrant officer junior grade
adjutant-chef
warrant officer (1)
chief warrant officer
major
-
-
aspirant
2nd lieutenant
2nd lieutenant
lieutenant
lieutenant
1st lieutenant
capitaine
captain
captain
commandant
major
major
lieutenant-colonel
lieutenant-colonel
lieutenant-colonel
colonel
colonel
colonel
général de brigade
brigadier
brigadier-general
général de division
major-general
major-general
général de corps d’armée
lieutenant-general
lieutenant-general
général d’armée
general
general
maréchal de France
field marshal
general of the army
Appendix C: Glossary
ALE - Les Archives de la Légion Etrangère at Aubagne
ALN - Armée de Libération Nationale – the armed wing of FLN
Arab - loosely used to mean an inhabitant of the Maghreb, including non-Arabic-speakers like the Berbers
bataillon de marche - temporary battalion for a specific operation
BEP - Bataillon Etranger de Parachutistes – Legion para battalion
bey, also dey - elected Turkish governor
bled - country, wilderness, also village
BMC - bordel mobile de campagne – soldier’s brothel
bo-doi - Viet Minh soldier
Boudin, Le - Most famous Legion marching song and bugle call – literally ‘Black Pudding,’ but variously thought to refer to the rolled blanket or overcoat, or tent roll originally carried atop the back-pack.
BSLE - Bureau de Sécurité de la Légion Etrangère – Legion internal security
cafard - cockroach
cafard (avoir le) - be severely depressed
caïd - Arab governor, also slang for ‘boss’. By extension, the bugle call sounded for the colonel of the regiment
Camerone (faire) - fight to the last round
can-bo - Viet Minh political officer
colon - European settler
congai - Vietnamese wife or mistress
convoyeuse - Evasan nurse
corvée - fatigue duty
Deuxième Bureau - French military intelligence
DBLE - Demi-Brigade de la Légion Etrangere – Legion half-brigade
djebel - mountain
DZ - drop zone of a parachute operation
ETA - estimated time of arrival
Evasan - French for ‘medevac’
fellagha, pl. fellouze - ALN fighter (usually abbreviated to ‘fell’)
FLN - Front de Libération Nationale – the main anti-French independence party of Algeria
GIGN - Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale – France’s best-known anti-terrorist unit
gnouf - Legion prison
goum, or goumier - North African native infantry on French side
HALO - High Altitude Low Opening – a free-fall glide with parachute opened far from the launch plane, used in clandestine insertions
harka - an Arab war-party
harki - Algerian soldier working for French army
katiba - ALN company
képi - hard French military cap
ksar or ksour - a fortified
village
lazaret - hospital, esp. for contagious diseases
LURP - (member of a) long-range reconnaissance team
Maghrebin - North African Arab
Mechta - neighbourhood of a village
pied-noir - orig. synonymous with Maghrebin, later a European settler in French North Africa
razzia - a scorched-earth raid
régiment de marche - temporary regiment for a specific campaign
REC - Régiment Etranger de Cavalerie – Legion cavalry regiment
REI - Régiment Etranger d’Infanterie – Legion infantry regiment
REIM - Régiment Etranger d’Infanterie de Marche – temporary Legion infantry regiment
REP - Régiment Etranger de Parachutistes – Legion para regiment
Riff - Part of Atlas range of mountains in Morocco
Riffian - a Berber inhabitant of the Rif region
RMLE - Régiment de Marche de la Légion Etrangère – a temporary regiment of men drawn from other units for a specific operation
RMVE - Régiment de Marche des Volontaires Etrangères – a temporary regiment of foreign volunteers
SHAT - Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre
Spahi - North African cavalryman on the French side – at first Arab, but later European
Stick - a group of paras who jump together
Taule - slang for ‘prison’
Tirailleurs - light infantry
Wilaya - one of five regional commands of ALN
Zouave -Algerian infantryman, later French but wearing the same Moorish uniform
Abbreviations used in captions: